191. Memorandum From Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff to President Kennedy0
We are convinced that Nasser’s renewed small scale bombing of the two Saudi towns is a carefully calculated answer to the leak that we warned him and he agreed to lay off.1 Rusk’s public warning Friday about our concern over Jordan and Saudi Arabia probably also helped.2
Badeau will go in pronto to ask what’s up. But UAR answer will no doubt be that they assumed “mediation” over since both Bunche and Bunker were back here. They will also say (and correctly) that Saudi supply effort to royalists is still going full blast. But we think UAR will stop now and watch our reaction.
Both sides are trying to force our hand, Faysal to get us to defend him and Nasser to get us to turn Faysal off. Despite our warnings to Nasser, main thrust of our effort still must be to get Faysal to disengage before he commits suicide.
If Bunche doesn’t go out today (he got no clear Saudi invite), we plan to send Bunker. In either event we’ll recommend personal message from you to Faysal urging him strongly to suspend aid immediately, and reinforcing Bunker’s pitch to him that we cannot help him unless he does so. Question is whether we can get him to do so unless we at least offer him the token air squadron.
Meanwhile, we are considering further precautionary deployments and intelligence signals designed to convey to Nasser that we might yet find ourselves in confrontation with him, yet without directly throwing gauntlet in his face.
- Source: Kennedy Library, President’s Office Files, Staff Memoranda, Komer, Robert W. Secret.↩
- See footnote 2, Document 189.↩
- Reference is to the Secretary’s comments at his March 8 news conference; see footnote 1, Document 182.↩